After a moment, she said, “What happened to the letter?”
“When my mother and I took it to the FBI and tried to convince them to conduct an investigation into Jenny’s murder and Wade’s disappearance, we were informed that Wade had acted in an improper and dangerous manner. His reckless and irresponsible disobedience of a direct order had resulted in the death of an agent. As far as the Bureau was concerned, Wade Drury was considered a fugitive.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Emily cried, outraged. “But they had his letter!”
“Which they kept. We never saw it again, but my mother had had the foresight to make a copy. We had that, and the first time I ever saw her crying over that letter was when I vowed to come here someday and find out what really happened. For her.”
Emily’s heart went out to him, and to the woman—to the mother—whom she’d never even met. “How could they do that?” she asked helplessly. “How could the FBI just sweep it under the rug like that?”
“They were afraid a full-scale investigation into Jenny’s murder would have threatened not only the operation in Paradise, but all the other ones around the country, as well. They had to keep it a secret in order to protect the lives of the agents who’d infiltrated the other groups.”
Darkness had gathered outside, and the first star twinkled out. The distant shimmer of light seemed like an omen, but whether it was good or bad, Emily couldn’t have said.
She looked up at Matthew. “And so, after all these years, you’ve come here—for what?” she asked him softly. “Revenge?”
He shrugged. “Maybe, in a way. My mother died two years ago, never knowing what happened to her oldest son. Wade’s disappearance and Jenny’s death had a profound effect on both of us. I guess I just decided it was time for the truth to come out.”
“But why now?” Emily couldn’t help asking. “Why fifteen years later?”
A brief smile touched his lips. He lifted his hand and stroked her cheek in a butterfly caress that seemed infinitely tender. “That, my sweet Emily, is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”
A QUESTION he wasn’t sure he was prepared to answer. The gentle warmth and compassion in Emily’s eyes drew Matthew like a magnet, but he knew he had to be careful. There was still so much he hadn’t told her, couldn’t tell her, and the last thing he wanted was to play fast and loose with her feelings.
With a measure of regret, he let his hand fall away from her.
“I could use some air,” he said. “Why don’t we take a walk in the garden?”
He saw the flicker of confusion in her eyes, but she shrugged. “Okay. Sure.”
Emily grabbed her denim jacket from the closet and slipped on her shoes, and then they went down the hallway and out into the garden, through the French doors in the living area. Darkness had fallen, but just over the mountains the sky still glowed with red and gold streaks of fire, remnants of what had probably been a spectacular sunset. A current of air drifted through the trees, carrying the nostalgic scent of autumn and the darker, deeper hint of winter.
Together they sat down on a wrought iron bench, and Emily seemed content to sit in the deepening twilight and watch the stars twinkle out one by one. After a while she said, “I love this time of year here. The fall was what I missed most when I left Paradise. I don’t believe there’s anywhere in the world that smells quite like the Ozarks in autumn.”
“Why did you leave?” Matthew asked, partly because he wanted to delay the rest of his story, but mostly because, suddenly, he wanted to know everything there was to know about Emily Townsend.
She shrugged her thin shoulders, her eyes fixed on the moon just rising over a mountaintop. “I was young, and like a lot of teenagers, I couldn’t wait to get out of my hometown, see the world. The summer I turned nineteen, I was very unhappy. I’d dropped out of college, couldn’t find a job, and there were a lot of…other pressures on me. When Eugene—my ex-husband—came through here, I guess I saw him as my way out.”
“Was it love at first sight?” Funny how disturbing that notion was, Matthew thought.
But Emily was shaking her head. “Hardly. Lust at first sight, maybe.” She laughed in self-derision. “And that didn’t last long, believe me, but by the time I’d gotten over it, it was too late. We were married. It didn’t take either one of us long to realize we had absolutely nothing in common, except…I guess we were both running away from our families. Eugene’s father had kicked him out of the house a few months before, and Stuart…Stuart wanted me to marry Trey Huntington. In fact, both he and Trey were…adamant about it.”
She was still staring at the moon, never glancing his way, but Matthew thought that she had grown quite tense. It seemed he wasn’t the only one with secrets. Emily wasn’t telling him everything, either.
“What happened?”
She gave him an ironic smile. “In a nutshell? I turned Trey down, and let’s just say he wasn’t happy about it. Trey doesn’t like rejection, and rather than have to face him—and Stuart—I left town with Eugene. I stayed away for seven years, and then—I don’t know—I guess, like you, I thought it was time for the truth to come out.”
“The truth?”
She hesitated only fractionally. “The truth about myself. I’d made a mistake. My marriage was a failure, and it was time to come home and take my medicine.”
“Lots of people make mistakes, Emily,” Matthew said. “Lots of people get divorced. You shouldn’t be punished for it.”
She laughed. It was a brittle little sound that had nothing to do with mirth. “Eugene was hardly my first mistake. I seem to have a talent for making the wrong choices.” She turned to him in the moonlight, saying softly, “I just hope I’m not about to make another.”
And what was he supposed to say to that? Matthew asked himself miserably. Was he supposed to rush to reassure her?
He couldn’t do that. There was no way he could promise Emily she wouldn’t be hurt by him, because when this mess was over, when all was said and done, she would probably look back on her time with him and wonder if it wasn’t perhaps the biggest mistake of her life.
He felt her eyes on him in the darkness. “Matthew? May I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Did your decision to come here now have anything to do with the woman who died?”
“In a roundabout way.” He turned his head and stared at her. “There’s still a lot you don’t know about me, Emily.”
“I haven’t exactly shared all my deep, dark secrets with you, either. Maybe some things are best left unsaid. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
And that simple statement suddenly made Matthew want to tell her everything. Reveal every last one of his secrets. His suspicions. Everything he had to hide. But subterfuge had been too deeply ingrained in him for far too long. There was only so much he was prepared to disclose.
He drew a deep breath and then expelled it. “When I told you that solving mysteries is a hobby of mine…that wasn’t exactly the truth. I’m a federal marshal, Emily.”
Even though he wasn’t looking at her, he could sense her startled reaction. Still, she said nothing.
He ran his hand through his hair, wondering how to proceed. “I guess law enforcement runs in our family. For years, I was drawn to that type of life, probably because of Wade. I got caught up in the excitement and challenge of my own career, and over the years, my memories of Wade and Jenny faded. I hardly ever thought about them.
“Then, a few months ago, I was assigned to guard a federal witness, a woman who had agreed to testify against her husband about his involvement in organized crime. We had Christine—that was her name—and her five-year-old daughter, Rachel, sequestered in a safe house, just outside of Memphis. There was a leak somewhere. The husband found out where we were keeping her, and he had his thugs attack the house. Christine was killed instantly, and Rachel—” He broke off, closing his eyes briefly as he relived the horror of
that night. The blood. The screams. The terrible guilt.
Matthew rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to banish the images, but they were indelibly marked on his memory.
He felt Emily’s hand on his arm, and her voice, gentle and soothing, said, “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Rachel was hit twice, once in the shoulder and once in the lower back. She’s undergone three surgeries in the past several months, and for a while the doctors weren’t sure she would ever walk again.”
“And now?”
“She’s been undergoing intensive physical therapy, and she was making remarkable progress until just a few weeks ago. She had a setback—more mental than physical, her doctors said. For some reason, though God knows why, she seems to be comforted by my presence, and so I’ve been trying to go see her as often as I can.”
“So that’s where you go,” Emily murmured, almost to herself. Then, “None of this is your fault, Matthew. Surely you know that.”
“It was my fault,” he said harshly. “Christine and I—” He stared at the ground. This was the part that was hardest to admit. Especially to Emily. He glanced up at her. “We never stepped over the line. I want you to know that. Nothing ever really happened between us, but it…could have. A life-and-death situation is always emotionally charged, and when you’re sequestered with someone night and day…” He trailed off and sighed. “Anyway, when I came to in the hospital, I had a lot of time to think, and I couldn’t help wondering if my attraction to Christine had somehow made me let my guard down. If it had made me careless. It was my duty to protect her and Rachel, and I let them both down. I failed them.”
Emily’s first instinct was to rush to reassure him again, but something he’d said made her ask instead, “What did you mean, when you came to in the hospital? You were injured, too?”
He nodded, his expression grim. “I was a lot luckier than Christine or Rachel. I was out of the hospital in a few weeks, but I couldn’t go back to my job. I didn’t trust myself anymore, and so I took a leave of absence, bummed around the country for a while. Then, a week or so ago, I saw Mike Durbin’s article in the paper. I don’t know why, maybe because of everything I’d just been through, but it seemed the right time to come here. To resolve the past, once and for all. Does that make any sense?”
Emily sighed. “It makes perfect sense to me. You have to lay the old ghosts to rest before you can deal with the new ones. I think that’s why I came back here, too.”
Their gazes met in the darkness, and it came to Emily that she had never felt so connected to anyone in her life. Never had anyone shared with her something that was so personal, so profound. She was deeply moved. “Thank you for telling me,” she said softly. “It means a lot to me.”
“There’s no need to thank me. I wanted you to know.” Matthew’s hand closed over hers on the bench, and though Emily couldn’t see his face clearly, she knew that his eyes, on her, were intense, darkly seductive.
She caught her breath as he said her name, very softly, in the darkness. His voice was like a caress, like a whisper of air against her neck, and a thrill of excitement shot up her spine.
“Matthew, I—”
Emily hadn’t a clue as to what she was about to say, but it didn’t matter, because the words were no sooner out of her mouth than Matthew gave a little tug on her hand and suddenly, somehow, she was in his arms.
His touch was electric. Emily’s breath rushed out of her as her every nerve ending sprang alive, waiting for his kiss. But for a moment, for an eternity, all he did was stare deeply into her eyes, searching her face in the darkness. Emily didn’t know what answers he hoped to find, didn’t take time to consider what might happen if he found them. She slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him toward her, until his lips were only a breath away from hers.
“Emily.”
“Don’t say it,” she whispered. “Don’t say it can’t happen.”
She saw him smile in the moonlight. “I was going to say I think it’s time to go in now.”
THEY TOOK THEIR TIME undressing. The slanting moonlight in Emily’s bedroom cast interesting patterns of light and dark on Matthew’s face as he gazed down at her, watching her every movement with a passion that captured her breath. They weren’t even touching each other, and yet the buildup was incredible, the tension deliciously prolonged.
Emily shivered as she shed the last of her clothing, and then, drawing a long breath, she stepped into Matthew’s arms. He held her for a long time, skimming his hands along her back, whispering his lips through her hair, letting their bodies become accustomed to each other before he kissed her. And when he did kiss her, it was a long, slow, deliberately unhurried exploration that made Emily’s heart pound frantically inside her. He buried his hands in her hair, holding her face still as his lips worked their sinful magic.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he murmured, raining kisses along her jawline and down her neck until Emily could hardly think at all.
She pressed herself against him, wanting more of him. Needing all of him. “Yes,” she whispered, letting her head fall wantonly back so that the column of her neck was completely exposed to his kisses. “I’ve never been so sure of anything.”
“Thank God,” Matthew muttered, just before his mouth claimed hers again in a kiss that dissolved any lingering hesitation.
Emily gave herself completely to the sensation. Thrill after thrill raced through her as Matthew picked her up, wrapped her legs around him and carried her to the bed.
EMILY AWAKENED. She couldn’t seem to move, and for a moment, panic swamped her. Then she realized the weight holding her down was Matthew’s arm. Her back was to him, and he was holding her close, as if he would never let her go.
Emily snuggled closer, and his arm tightened around her.
“This is nice,” she murmured.
His breath was hot against her cheek as he bent to skim the shell of her ear with his tongue. “I’ve been lying here dying for you to wake up,” he said in a low, intimate tone.
Emily laughed. The low, throaty, sexy sound of it surprised her. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I thought you might need your rest,” Matthew said, his hand applying the lightest, most exquisite pressure to her breast. Emily shuddered in delight, and Matthew drew her closer, letting her feel the evidence of his urgency.
A thrill of desire shot through Emily. She turned in his arms so that she could gaze into his eyes. “Matthew,” she said, “rest is the last thing I want right now.”
MATTHEW AWAKENED, startled to find Emily staring down at him. He was lying on his back, and she was propped on her elbow, tracing lazy patterns on his bare chest with her finger. She smiled when she saw that he was awake.
“I’ve been lying here,” she said, “dying for you to wake up.”
Her hand skimmed lower, disappearing beneath the sheet, and Matthew’s body instantly responded. Emily’s brown eyes deepened knowingly.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked hoarsely as her hand continued to explore.
“I thought you might want to sleep.”
Matthew kicked off the sheet and lifted her on top of him, letting their bodies become reacquainted all over again.
“Emily,” he said, his breath coming out in a gasp as she began to move against him, “sleep is the last thing I want right now.”
Chapter Twelve
“What does one do at a séance?” Emily asked as she lit candles and placed them strategically around the parlor.
“There are no hard-and-fast rules,” Mrs. DeVere said as she made her final preparations for the evening. She glanced up at Emily, her eyes dark and mysterious in the candlelight. “I’m so glad you agreed to hold the séance this evening. I feel sure we’ll make contact. I can already feel the vibrations.”
Emily could feel the vibrations, too, but she didn’t think hers had anything to do with spirits. She
was still basking in the afterglow of her and Matthew’s lovemaking the night before. Every time she thought about it, shivers of delight raced all through her.
“I’m sure tonight will be an evening to remember,” she said, pretending more interest than she actually felt.
Nella Talbot was the first guest to arrive. Dressed in a subdued navy wool dress, with her blond hair pulled back into a bun, the librarian looked quietly pretty, as always. But her deep blue eyes, behind her wire-rimmed glasses, appeared anxious.
“My,” she said, glancing around, “it’s dark in here.”
“All for effect, I assure you,” Emily said. “Come on into the parlor. It’s a little bit lighter in there.”
“I didn’t quite know…Am I dressed okay?” Nella stammered shyly.
“Lord only knows,” Emily said, glancing down at her own broomstick skirt, long black sweater and lace up boots. She hadn’t exactly known how to dress for the spirit world, either. “You look great,” she assured Nella. “Let me introduce you to Mrs. DeVere, our guide to the netherworld this evening.”
“I brought you this.” Nella held out a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread.
“Why, Nella, you didn’t have to do that.” Emily was touched by Nella’s thoughtfulness. She started to take the bread, but just then the doorbell rang.
“Shall I put it in the kitchen for you?” Nella asked.
“Can you find your way in the candlelight? Be careful,” Emily called as Nella turned away.
Mike Durbin was at the door, and he, too, was bearing gifts. “I don’t know if a bottle of wine is appropriate for a séance or not,” he said. “But I brought red.”
No one, including the hostess, seemed quite sure of the proper etiquette for a séance. Emily took the wine from Mike as he strolled into the parlor. She’d had grave reservations about inviting him tonight, but at the last minute she’d decided she could keep a closer eye on him this way. Maybe she could steer the article he was certain to write about the night’s events in a more flattering direction.
Amanda Stevens Bestseller Collection: Stranger In Paradise/A Baby's Cry Page 16